


greyscale

by allechant



Series: ars goetia [7]
Category: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24880057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allechant/pseuds/allechant
Summary: she was chaos and unpredictability and she had no right to even look at him, let alone force colour into his dreams.
Relationships: Main Character/Solomon (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)
Series: ars goetia [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738339
Comments: 14
Kudos: 103





	greyscale

Once upon a time, he dreamt in colour. But that was a long time ago, and he had practically forgotten what such dreams looked like.

Dreams reflected one’s deepest desires. Dreams were vivid – they burst forth in blossoms full of colour, brimming with hope and intent. They were quiet, fervent prayers for a better future, translating into surreal landscapes, festivals of brightness and joy and everything he might have once wished for. But when he closed his eyes, all he saw was black and white.

It wasn’t that he didn’t yearn for anything. He had his desires – who didn’t? He was human, and it was human to want. But eventually, he grew to realise that everything was… _superficial_. None of it mattered. Even secrets he would have once killed to discover held little meaning.

The darkest depths of knowledge. Magic and power. Forbidden grimoires, secret rituals, the truth of creation itself – what did any of that mean, in the end? What would he do even if he plundered the depths of the universe and found the keys he so desperately sought?

Solomon knew, even if he didn’t want to admit it. After he deciphered his riddles, after he solved his mysteries, there would be no grand finale. No reward, no satisfaction, nothing. He would continue to live his life the way he always did. So, why should he even try?

Thousands of years ago, he had sought purpose. He wanted to discover the meaning of life. He was desperate to spin the wheel of fate, to unravel the world and follow its threads back to the origins of time itself. He had always been curious; whenever he found a question that he could not answer, he would simply set forth to seek the truth. And he never failed.

He was the wisest man in the world, beloved of the Celestial Realm. Anything he wanted, he took – people came from far and wide to listen to his counsel, bearing treasures and exotic gifts which he then shared with his wives and his citizens. His empire prospered. He wanted for little, his coffers overflowing with gold and precious jewels. But his mind was unsated.

All the riches he owned were poor substitutes for knowledge. He thirsted to _learn_ , and he threw himself into reading, into deciphering ancient texts and scripts that blurred the line between truth and fiction. He was perfectly aware of how little time mortals had to live, so he chose to devote every waking moment towards his pursuit of meaning. It was his dying wish, a brand on his heart that suffocated his lungs and made him forget how to breathe.

But even he was unable to escape the ebb and flow of time. He could see the finish line of what once seemed to be an endless road; he continued his relentless march, desperately searching for a way to extend the path. Something. Anything. But the hours and days and months and years blurred into nothingness and before he knew it, he was at death’s door, his hands and feet bound by the shackles of mortality. His breath rattled in his lungs.

Wealth didn’t mean anything when he was looking into an open grave, his name carved in stark letters on a marble headstone. Time was a scarce resource. No matter how much he begged or pleaded, it was impossible to barter for more. Thus, Solomon made his decision – if he was unable to wrest more time from the skeletal jaws of the Reaper, then he simply had to find another way to evade the inevitable fate that awaited all mortals.

Making use of his knowledge and magic, Solomon summoned one of the powerful dukes of Hell – Barbatos, capable of altering the flow of time itself, a demon who could see into the past, the present and the future. His powers lent him control over the fate of mortals, and Solomon knew that this was his one, his only chance to escape his future – so they sealed their pact with blood and from then on, he ceased to fear the passage of time.

Death could no longer touch him. He had been rescued from its icy embrace, but what he gave up in exchange was far more terrible than his soul. Barbatos had not wanted his soul, reasoning that a man who could never die had no right to gamble with the afterlife. Instead, Barbatos took something Solomon had cared little about – the company of people.

He was told that for the rest of his immortal life, he would remain alone. He could not forge any genuine connection; his relationships would always be shallow and superficial. He was a lone human who traversed the sands of time, seeking absolute, objective truth.

He was comfortable with that. Other people would be nothing but distractions. Despite his love for his kingdom, he was very much aware of how difficult people could be. He was the ruler of a nation, and he ensured his citizens’ needs were met, but they always wanted more – more trade, more wealth, more women, more _everything_. Keeping them happy had taken up so much time, so much energy. He had no desire to return to his past.

Yet without him noticing, loneliness quietly, undoubtedly crept into his heart, numbing him to everything he once considered important – before he knew it, centuries had passed, and he had frozen over completely. One day he realised he couldn’t recall the sound of genuine laughter, or the brutal inferno of rage, or even the uneasy sting of jealousy. Try as he might, those emotions slipped through his fingers, dissipating from the cracks in his heart into the illusion of eternity. And he knew then that he had forgotten what it meant to be human.

Was this an effect of the passage of time? Were humans born to die – were they meant to fade quietly into the twilight? Was his very existence unnatural? He didn’t know, but by this point, he didn’t care enough to find out. Why should he dig any further if there was no one he could share his knowledge with? There was nothing to gain from questioning his past.

However, one day he met another human in the Devildom, some unfortunate soul who had been chosen to participate in the same exchange programme as him. He quickly realised that she was his complete opposite – naïve, inexperienced and curious, oblivious to the workings of the world. He couldn’t help but marvel at her blind idiocy, at her startling _gullibility_.

No one in their right mind would willingly throw themselves into the embrace of demons. It was instinctive to fear Hell and its denizens – after all, Hell was a reminder of their mortality, a representation of mankind’s inclination to sin. People feared what they didn’t understand – she was a human with no magic or power, so he didn’t think she would be any different.

But she didn’t flee from her new reality. She stood with the seven princes of Hell, raising her chin in defiance, a candle flickering in the winds of their strength. She stood with them not as a subordinate, but as an equal, gaining not only their respect but also their affections.

That was shocking enough in itself, but she didn’t stop there. She reached for him, her nails sinking deep into his flesh, and no matter how hard he tried to push her away, she refused to let him go. She pestered him to no end – was it because she was curious about his past? Or because she simply didn’t know how to keep her nose out of people’s business? He had no idea, and he didn’t want to know either. The less she bothered him, the better.

But a tiny part of him was intrigued by the determination that glimmered in her eyes. A tiny part of him wondered if she would genuinely care about his reason to exist. And as he watched her making her way through the Devildom, tearing down and rebuilding everything in her image – he wondered if she was special.

If somehow, despite his calculations and predictions and failures, there was _one_ human in the world who could escape the grasp of Barbatos’ curse. If there was someone who was able to slowly coax him towards the light, breathe humanity back into his empty soul.

That night, in his dreams, her face bloomed before him. Her eyes were filled with longing, and a whisper lingered on her lips. Her mouth was moving but he couldn’t hear a single word that she said, transfixed by the ever-present curiosity simmering in her gaze.

In a sea of black and white, her face was the only thing that bled colour. He reached for her, his fingers searching, desperate to feel some kind of _contact_ , anything to prove that she was real. That she was alive. But the more he strained, the blurrier her figure became, and then suddenly he was awake, her name falling from his lips, his hands stretching into thin air.

But she wasn’t there.

**Author's Note:**

> based on my twitter thread - just kinda fleshed it out a bit ♡
> 
> yell at me on [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/dontenchantme)


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